Miami's Best Youth Football Team Beats Opponents, Violence, Gambling, and Turmoil

With 90 seconds left in the first half, Nay'quan Wright walks slowly back to the line of scrimmage. Like his teammates on the 125-pound Miami Gardens Bulldogs, the middle linebacker is grabbing his hips and gasping for breath under a scorching December sun.

The West Miramar Patriots are threatening to score from the Bulldogs' 24-yard line. On the sidelines, El Tarow Wallace — known to the Bulldogs as "Coach Row" — waves his arms frantically at Nay'quan, signaling a blitz. A two-way player who earned the league MVP, Nay'quan glares at the quarterback like a miniature version of his idol, Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis. Inside his black helmet, Nay'quan's cherub face morphs into an icy, contorted scowl.

In the stands of the 20,000-seat Florida International University Stadium, the sixth-grader's mother, Learte Gainer, stomps her feet and cheers with two dozen Bulldogs fans. A full-figured woman with long raven hair, Gainer wears a tank top silk-screened with photos of her 12-year-old son.

George Martinez

Nay'quan Wright was shot in the chest at practice in 2011. He recovered from the wound to lead the Miami Gardens Bulldogs to a Super Bowl trophy in 2012.

Broward Sheriff's Office

Broward County youth football coaches Brandon Bivens, Darron Bostic, and Dave Small are accused of illegally betting on little-league games.

"Let's go, defense!" she shouts. "They can't hang with us!"

The referee blows his whistle. The Pats' QB tosses the ball to his running back, and 11- and 12-year-old boys crunch into one another with brutal power. An offensive lineman slows Nay'quan enough for the running back to cut up the field, where he dodges between two more defenders. The Bulldogs' cheering section goes silent as he sprints into the end zone. Coach Row, a scruffy, bearded 28-year-old dockworker who's led Nay'quan's squad for seven years, slaps his hands on his thighs in frustration. "This is not how we win championships," he shouts. "We need to tighten up now!"

In the 125-pound Orange Bowl Youth Football Championship, all the momentum is with the Patriots, who are now up 18-14 with just a few seconds to go before the half. After steamrolling through the Florida Youth Football League and thumping another rival 40-6 in a playoff qualifier, the Bulldogs are suddenly in serious trouble of losing their first game in five months.

What the Patriots don't know, though, is that these pugnacious kids have already rallied from far worse.

Nay'quan and his squad are lucky to be on the field at all. During a practice last November, a drive-by shooting left four people gravely wounded, including Nay'quan.

The preteen's recovery to dominate his league was amazing enough. But the Bulldogs' triumph also comes at a time when the booming subculture of South Florida youth football — which attracts tens of thousands of kids to at least a half-dozen leagues and has produced more than four dozen current NFL players — is reeling from shootings, assaults on the field, scandals over felons with coaching jobs, and a mass gambling bust.

In July 2011, a gunman wounded three boys at a youth football practice in West Little River Park; the violence continued a year after Nay'quan's own ordeal in November 2011, when yet another criminal opened fire in Overtown's Gibson Park, wounding three spectators. A month later, a West Park Saints coach was arrested after punching a referee; reports later showed he was a violent felon. And worst of all, in November, Broward County sheriffs arrested nine men, including six coaches, for leading a ring that bet up to $100,000 on youth games.

The turmoil has highlighted an ugly underbelly of youth football, where adults are illegally profiting off kids they're supposed to be mentoring. Coupled with rising concerns over concussions, the crimes have left some asking whether Florida's passion for youth football needs to cool.

"Do we need to reduce head injuries in youth football? Absolutely," says Dr. Tony Strickland, chief executive of the Los Angeles-based Sports Concussions Institute, one of a growing number of researchers examining links between youth sports and brain trauma.

For Nay'quan Wright and his teammates, though, there's no question at all. The game they've played together since kindergarten is the most stable, positive force in their lives and their biggest hope for the future. "I just love the sport," Nay'quan says. "I just like hitting, doing things with the ball, playing with my teammates, and winning."

As the clock ticks toward halftime, he and his teammates have only one thing in mind: beating the Patriots and taking a title.

Nay'quan and his teammates never noticed the dark Chevy Impala pulling up in front of Bunche Park's football fields in Miami Gardens. They were absorbed on that breezy night in November 2011 with an intense scrimmage led by Wallace, who stood on the sidelines screaming at his star running back.

As Nay'quan burst through a gap between the tackles, carrying defenders six extra yards before going down, a 20-year-old man with short dreads and a thin mustache opened the Impala's rear door and stepped out. His name was Tyrone Vincent Bivins, and he squinted past the kids in pads to spot the man he was looking for, playing basketball 50 feet away. Bivins allegedly pulled out an AK-47 and took aim.

Nearby, one of the volunteer mentors, Ozzie Mathis, a gregarious barber with gold teeth, was watching a 9-year-old boy named Isiah throw tight ten-yard spirals when he heard a popping sound.